To office

I rushed myself to the bathroom, had a quick shower, and wiped my head with the towel then unlocking the door I walked out straight, just managing not to slip from the water dripping off my body. Quickly I took out a blue pinstripe shirt from my closet being the first one of the neatly ironed stack of shirts and then took a wool trouser in the darkest of grays and wore it with the very tan derby shoes. Just one tap for my hair, being small and I was out, closing my apartment and getting down the stairs.

Getting down I ran into Mrs. Gupta, I wished her ‘Namaste’ and she replied ‘Namaste beta’. She was a really nice lady but I was getting late and could not avoid leaving her with the two heaped bags of vegetables she was carrying moreover her flat was on the third floor and we met at a place between ground and first floor to add to all the misery our apartment didn’t even have an elevator, God!

I asked if I could help her with the bags and she said ‘khush raho beta’. While going up the stairs she kept asking me questions on my job, parents, really annoying friends who come at weekends making nuisance playing music here and finally asked me ‘nashta kiya beta’, to which I replied ‘nahi aunty’ then she protested ‘thik hai, abhi laga deti hun kha ke jana’. I then alleged I was really getting late today and might miss the bus, but promised her the breakfast on Sunday and was off to the street from the small aisle stairs of our apartment took a left and met the eyes of a girl now. It seemed like she was getting late as well and we took off that awkward moment to our own ways.

I walked the street almost running trying to avoid the small pits that were filled with water from yesterday night’s rain and the loose sand, made it messier. I reached the bus stop and took the bus to Parel from Andheri which would take up to half an hour.

I climbed in a bus and managed to stand in the middle aisle, but was actually forced to this place with the bus being completely filled with people of every kind, some late to offices, some school and others I wouldn’t know, but everyone was in a hurry, it showed clearly in their desperate faces and eyes trying to find one glance outside the window. Not everyone could afford a vehicle here this was Bombay.

The conductor came towards me; I took out my wallet, and empty! Now this is not done with all that from morning I forget to take out cash from the ATM. But then I remembered, on Friday while I was at my desk Akash came to me rolling on his chair from the adjacent cubicle and gave me seven hundred saying it was of the Tuesday’s night out ‘buzz off! I don’t want it’ I replied he then alleged ‘it was not your treat, besides, we insisted you on coming and none of us had enough cash at last and I know no one else has paid you till date, anyways keep it’ and taking it I was very lazy to get up and keep it in the wallet so just pushed it in the inner section of my laptop bag with my left hand not even looking towards it.

So I put my hand again inside my bag, take a hundred rupee note out and give it to the conductor to which he commented in a local slang ‘kya bhaiya pandra rupaye ke liye sau rupaye dete! Chiller dena naa’. I said I didn’t have the change and he gave me the ticket with the required change looking away.

I just managed to stand upright and saw the same girl my eyes met while I came out of the stairway on the street, also standing trying to deal with rush, but kept those gloomy and silent eyes on me. I began thinking maybe something was on my face, hair or was my shirt torn? sensing everything by my hand almost sure there’s nothing wrong with me, I looked up and she was frozen in the same position, I turned back to see a guy with the same expression, I better not think more cause I can make them lovers, ex’s, siblings or possibly the guy could even be a terrorist in my mind, let’s leave it here.

Oh! My stop was here; I dealt with the crowd again to land on my left then right foot as the bus left. I walked for fifty meters along the pavement of a busy road, again filled with people going to offices, women selling vegetables and shouting on top of their voices, followed by a group of higher secondary school girls in tops and skirts probably bunking today.  Just then there was a hand on my shoulder, it was Aakash; he said ‘you see those legs, dude! Nothing can beat those not even those juicy and temping ones of chicken’. I lifted an eyebrow towards him and he didn’t bother.

We reached at 9:35 and the office was silent, the boss was in we knew, we sat at our desks, switched on our laptops and started the day with Facebook next Microsoft outlook.

While keeping the head on the screen I took a look of 180⁰ from my eyes to see what was going around making sure I do not turn behind at the boss’s cabin. My eyes stopped at a new guy diagonally across me, well dressed in formals, lean, dark and roughly looked similar to me. I asked Akash adjacent to me about him and he said that guy came in for Mr. Sharma’s position as assistant manager business development; I contradicted ‘he looks relatively young for the position’ Aakash then responded ‘he was from the IIM’.

We got to our work and during lunch I made an introduction, he said he was Arif, I asked him to join us for lunch, he retorted by said he’d join us in a bit. At lunch we discussed of office issues, the evergreen boss, the presidential election and India at Olympics.

At the stroke of 5:30 most of the employees had their mouse pointer on the shut down button and some were even packing now. We bid byes and left for home while walking out I looked behind and with the corner of my eye and saw Arif was still working.

I then survived the traffic, the people, and pollution reaching home in an hour.

Back home as soon as I indulged myself without even changing, into the sinful black forest cake from the fridge, spooning a bite from the already fragile segment of a cylinder and there was a call from Neha.  She was almost panting while she spoke, I calmed her and asked what made her so restless, almost unable to get her words out of her mouth she just managed to let out letters and sounds of words like ‘I,  . . today, now.’ okay so I kept listening them for a minute and then asked her to speak properly so that I comprehend her words.

She said ‘my boss actually invited himself for a dinner at my house’

I reacted saying ‘alright, so what was the problem?’

She asserted ‘you very well know that I can’t cook’, ‘then order something’ I answered.

She again protested ‘are yar, if it had been so easy I’d not have called you, boss said he liked home cooked food’. 

I commented to tease ‘Oh! That’s nice, start cooking then’, she almost blasted saying ‘listen, I am not hearing any shit from you now, there’s very little time, try to make it fast to my house, and yes get the things you’ll require to make the dinner.’

‘Alright’ I said, asking ‘anything special that you’d like’

‘Oh yeah, see that that you have an appetizer, two main dishes and a dessert, and make sure that you have chicken wherever possible’ she added.

I questioned ‘this is what you eat everyday at home?’, ‘no, but I am trying to make an impression here, so please, come fast’ she responded.

‘Well for that, feed him with your love then’ I said.

‘Yeah, I’ll do it but, now please come fast’ she cried,

‘Okay, I’ll come in half an hour’ I assured and hung up.

I changed into an indigo blue surf club t-shirt and an almost similar colour of jeans and rushed out. While on my way, it was drizzling again, as the sky was almost dark now. I went into the supermarket and bought chicken, paneer, cream, etc and left for Neha’s home.

Neha actually was a very good friend of mine, right from the college and still four years after our college had ended, we’d worked in different companies but both of us were in marketing.

I was struggling my way through the narrow roads between the tall and age old apartments, carrying packets of uncooked food, as the rain showed its presence, showering lightly seen only under the strong glow of the amber streetlights. The roads were again filthy and I avoided getting hit by the cyclists trying to get into and out of the tiny pedestrian lanes.

I reached her house and brushed my slippers against her door mat as she unlocked the door, we went in straight to the kitchen and Neha helped me cut the vegetables till I marinated the chicken. As she kept chopping the vegetables with the knife, her mouth kept chopping my brain, listening to all the stuff happening in her office.

While I blanched the spinach now Neha asked me ‘what about the girl your mother asked you to marry’ I replied not interested saying ‘I shut my mom on this issue’, ‘but you can’t avoid it she’ll again ask you in the coming months for the same’ she said.

‘Well then, I’ll take your name and she’ll have no questions on that’ I replied.

‘That would be quite fun actually, marring Nakul my college crush, see the advantages, I’d never have to cook, and I can date as many guys I like, anyways  you’d have no objections to that, right.’ She commented.

‘Yeah, yeah very well said’ I said sarcastically.

In the next hour Aditya arrived, he was a really young guy and came in a t-shirt and plain grey shorts with a chocolate bouquet. I was surprised ‘why are the bosses so young days?’ I said while making rotis in kitchen after meeting him, to Neha, ‘I don’t know, but I like it’ she said.

‘Hey Neha, this guy is completely into you, did you see his eyes, the balls move on the oval white screen of his eyes with every motion of yours, he might have thought of making dinner with you, but you spoilt it, instead making a nice dinner for him’ I whispered into her ears while we served the smoking malai chicken.

In the following two hours I realized, Aditya was a nice guy actually, he was witty and sharp with facts. We stayed till it was ten and he gave me a drop back home in his car.

The next morning I again reach fifteen minutes late to the office and it was silence again, I went and sat at my desk till there was a call from my boss. I went in and he asked me about the market projection report for the south region, I said it was still under scrutiny with the accounts manager. He then explained in order to cover the marketing strategy for the fourth quarter I would have to work with Arif covering the south, but I claimed working with Aakash on the project, to which boss replied he would be handling north now with Akshay.

I was freaked out thinking of this and the adventures we had planned along with the work covering the entire south India marketing project while leaving the boss’s cabin. I said all this to Aakash, but he was amused as he still had Akshay in the plan who was an equally good friend of mine and a very entertaining guy. Akshay said ‘I’ll go river rafting in Himalayas while you’ll be working with the new guy Arif, good luck boy!!’, ‘yeah! I need that badly’ I thanked.

The next few days had tight schedules, from one meeting to another we had lots of discussions about what our strategy was going to be from Bangalore to Hyderabad, Cochin and Chennai, but there was no mention of Goa or Pondicherry or fishing, swimming, scuba diving either. This guy is really getting onto my nerves now, all that comes out of those perfect lips and his flawlessly smart persona is work.

These IIM graduates are real jerks, no doubt I did not get into one of them.

It was Sunday afternoon the following week and we had our train for Bangalore, Arif actually had a flight ticket being at a senior position against my ac first train one but then he divided the journeys into some train ones and few with flights, so that we could take them together. I waited for him as I had reached the CST station, at half past twelve and one hour before the train was scheduled to leave.

As I reached the station I called up Arif and he said he’ll be there in ten minutes I went in towards the platform entrances in the station waiting for him sitting on a wrought iron chair made in a very English design sense, containing the symmetric elements of art deco combined skillfully with the eccentric curves of art nouveau, listening to Kailash Kher and juggling the songs up and down, like throwing things up with a finger and then down on the screen of my apple IPod.

I turned my head with every coming announcement against each platform, turning it left this time and there he was, a smart figure in a polo t-shirt  with dark indigo slim jeans and Kolhapuri chappals, walking straight to me. He held two bags and as he came closer, I noticed a very smart stubble that enhanced his angular face and jaw giving a highlight against that skin of his, adding to the already elegant look were his aviators in black and sporting a smile from one end of his lip making them lit with a rectangular beam of light falling from the broken asbestos ceiling onto him as he came and stood near me, turning the black aviators green.

He tapped my shoulder and said, ‘hi Nakul, ready to leave’, ‘yes Arif’ I replied he asked for the platform and I said it was six, the Udyan express. The train was already at the platform, we passed the first coach and our coach was to the end of the train. We walked past the coolies and the passengers shouting as the train on platform number five had just arrived. We crossed the water coolers, books and refreshment stores, weaving our way and avoiding them, walking further there were just few people around, Arif kept walking in front of me.

I couldn’t believe he could wear anything other than formals, but he looked gorgeous, and yes I liked guys and people dint know this because I was not out, yet. It took a while till I could take my eyes off this guy, there were good looking guys all over some young, some young adults but none was as striking as this one.

We got in took our seats and chatted for some time about college, school, trains, he said he liked football and so did I, as a result it was six thirty and we were discussing the recent semifinal of the Euro cup wherein Spanish being the champions couldn’t even make a single goal against the Portuguese defense till the full time, till the attendant broke into the discussion asking for our dinner preference.

It was eight now and we had parted to ourselves with me listening to the music and he was reading a book keeping it in his both hands and elbows resting on the knees not turning pages from a long time, I had noticed, staring straight into the book and then was disturbed as the food arrived, the food was good surprisingly and after eating we went on to sleep.

We got up as the train entered the Bangalore city station. We got out and noticed the station was old and was falling apart, I’d never thought Bangalore’s station to be so, and we then took a cab to our hotel Le Meridian.

Checking in and into our room now, I entered and fell on the bed almost instantly, but in the next hour we were both ready with me in a plaid shirt and Arif in a polo with mandarin collar and overall print of crossed polo sticks in navy on a pale green background, pairing it with a navy blue jeans. Gosh! He looked gorgeous. We started to leave and as he passed me, oh! He smelled divine, very plain and dry though.

We had a meeting scheduled with an advertising agency, so we reached in the UB City hotel and waited for them at their roof top restaurant. I could barely keep my eyes open the sun was hard and Arif kept telling me about the brands here, the promotion tools they have been adopting all these years. I was quite listening to him, thinking why does he have to think about work every time? The place was good filled with pretty girls all over, but I never observed Arif spotting any of them, was he also gay? Nah! He doesn't notice guys either; he’s just one gorgeous geek. The clients arrive we have a discussion and then they are off in just twenty minutes, as they were quite busy.

I asked Arif so what do we do now, squeaking my eyes looking at him and the hard sun just behind him, he said let’s eat something looking at me with his eyes blocked with the dark glares. I ordered for a smoked salmon with Parmesan pesto and he took lasagna, we talked as we ate about the place and amazing food here, I said him that I cook great food inviting him for dinner when we get back. He was happy and loved it.

He very gracefully cut each bite from the knife, piercing the fork into the fluidic layers of lasagna , then towards the mouth and finally into it. I just couldn't take my eyes off and kept dividing the minute into parts that had two tenth for his poised face, one tenth for his hands, one tenth the plate, the next towards the guy on the end of the aisle, then the two college guys just on the next table, my plate again, the architecture, the mosaic on floor and then repeating it all over again for almost more than an hour now.

But this guy was special and he was growing on my mind in an eccentric pace with every turn of the seconds’ hand. Words kept coming out of those flawless lips like crystals moving in air and breaking onto my ears and eventually falling down not making it to my head to comprehend them. Till my right hand went to my lips instead of left hand with fork giving a small cut on my lip, Arif exclaimed immediately  ‘Nakul, what’s the matter, what’s ruling your mind?’, ‘there nothing’ I replied rolling my lover lip inside to wipe it.

We finished at about four and left for the day’s work, looking for sites, and meeting clients. The coming days were getting all pepped up and packed with fun and work, against my thought about this trip earlier. Actually I now understood that this was his passion, the figures, the brands, the ever-growing business, numbers, statistics, he loved the dynamics in them, and that’s why kept that mind ticking to understand, comprehend and then derive to make new things happen.

Time passed and cities passed with them, we became great friends now, as we played catches with apples while making presentations and talked off ourselves out the entire night supporting opposite teams in the premier league matches, eating, drinking and more eating and drinking till we passed out on each other on the large couch.

We took a flight from Cochin to Hyderabad, which was our last stop, staying at the splendid Kakatiya  here, all throughout the day we had our meetings scheduled following with markets again, in just two days we finished it all and were to take the Shatabdi to Bombay the third afternoon.

We checked out and were on the way to the station in the cab. While we were talking, I loved the way he broke up and explained me things about the car’s music system, then the solar powered street lights, the immaculately carved stone sculptures in granite along the way on the divider, his hands helped him with his voice adding zing to the beautiful science that came in through stories.

Now, I didn’t know what was it, attraction, love or only friendship but one thing I liked his company and does everything need a definition, there was no lust, although I always wanted to kiss him holding his hands every time he explained something like the poetic pistons rising and falling to propel the engine. He never asked me of girls, we were just perfect, but this was it, our journey was going to end and so was my love when we’d reach Dadar.

Wasn’t there a way to stop this time so we’d elope in another dimension of ours? We went in the train and spent the time talking and commenting on weird people in the station and their looks. On reaching Dadar, we got down, he gave me a hug and said ‘dinner tomorrow at your place’ turned and winked as he left.

I went home and the coming days went like the speed of light, with my love towards Arif that kept increasing exponentially, but there was no way out, he wasn’t gay or at least I dint think so, moreover our perfect friendship might just break if I’d ask him over.

In the next six months my marriage had been fixed and in the following year I had been married and no one even had the slightest hint of my homosexuality, but it was worthless to tell anyone they’d never understand, and would complicate things for life. Things changed and with that changed our places, I now lived in Delhi, I and Anita were quite happy now and Arif was a chapter that had closed but I lamented it every time, in every why of my son Ankur.

It was eight and Neha was coming to meet us after four long years, she came in, met and showered Ankur with chocolates greeting Anita she headed straight to the kitchen, peeking at everything I’d made as she missed my food from a long time.

While having dinner I asked her ‘why didn’t you marry that Aditya guy? You had dated for years.’

‘are yar, you wouldn’t believe, he was such a jerk, he dated me so I’d marry him while he already had a longtime boyfriend in Bombay who I think worked in your earlier company for a small stint but have eventually broken off and are living alone today from five years now.